With the end of my "Demon II" build in sight and a slight lull in it due to waiting on parts I've decided to put my next build on the work bench. This one is another "Blast from the Past". I built this kit as a kid and although it was a terrible build looking back, I had a lot of fun with it. After a tumble on the shelf shortly after I built it she was put out of her misery. The Pactra Star Blue paint had been brushed on and it was the ugly duckling of all of my builds even in that day. Flashing forward some 35 years later here I go to give this beauty another shot. As some of you know, I've been wanting to build a rig for some time now and this just seemed like the perfect one to build.

The Pactra paint line has ended so I'll be on the search for a close, if not perfect, match to the original Star Blue as possible. I also need to do a lot of research on White Freightliners as to get a lot of the details right and the paints as close as possible. Decals are shot so I'll be outsourcing those to get a fresh set. I've also managed to round up an upgraded set of wheels and tires for this bad boy so I turned to Moebius for those.

I've also ordered an upgraded resin engine to use with this kit. The OOB one isn't bad but it just doesn't have the details that I want. So I'll be posting pictures of that when it comes in.

Right off the bat there are a lot of parts to this basic frame and suspension. Got lots of cleanup to do and some research before painting. I'm not used to building these kinds of kits so the research is going SLOW.

I'll be watching this one with interest. If you want to treat this baby with your usual attention to detail, this is going to be a long project! Those AMT kits are factually very correct, put the parts tend to be very crude. On the other hand the Italeri kits have nice detail, but some of them are pure fantasy - the worst is probably the "Power truck" or Mack Superliner. For example, instead of a Mack frame and suspension it has... a Freightliner frame and suspension! This could be useful for you. Almost all of the Italeri 1:24 trucks have a Freightliner frame.

But first I wanted to invite you to take a look at my Mack Superliner build thread, to give you all kinds of wrong ideas... Please note that this build is still not finished - that's exactly what happens when you go too deep with a project. But I have it stored and I intend to finish it one sunny day:

More like those are easy to find just by googling "Freightliner frame" or something like this. The thing is Freightliner started to build trucks in the fifties and their basic frame and suspension design stayed the same for decades. So the cutoff from a 1986 truck will be almost the same as in your model. One thing to note is the air ride - they started to build air bags instead of springs some time in the seventies, and since this gives you a lot better ride the air ride is now way more popular than the spring suspension. So here's the idea - maybe you'd like to transplant the Italeri frame to your model? This gives you much nicer detail, air ride and positionable front wheels to top it off - what do you say?

And you should know that the drivers didn't regard the Freightliners very high. In their slang they are called "Freightshakers". A one man company driver wouldn't rather buy a Freightshaker - more likely a Paccar (Kenworth/Peterbilt) for comfort or a Mack for ruggedness. On the other hand a fleet owner would be glad to buy a couple of hundreds of them Freightliners. And now the company is owned by Mercedes of Germany.

THANK Heavens! I was so worried you would just give up modeling after finishing the Demon II (choke-gasp –wheez OK Not really) This is going to be a great kit for you an' your skills to bring into the 21st Century .

Oh, and I looked but all my Pactra is dried out, but the 10¢ printed on the bottle cap is pure nostalgia

I've been looking at this and a few other boo boo's that this kit has. The front tires are supposedly a problem area as they stick out from the wheel well too much. I'm either going to have to cut the front axle some or not install the front brakes. The cab is sectioned into a front half and a back half................presenting a nasty seam. The list goes on but I've started trying to remedy the problem by turning to my spare kit. I'll be doing a dry run on a total assembly of this truck without any paint just to see how to mitigate the problems that show up along the way.

Additional kit acquired today:

Got the frame and suspension already assembled. The front axle is just lying on top of the leaf springs. I'll be working with this part to ensure the tires end up where they are supposed to. I'll look into that whole headlight ordeal when I get there. Dunno if I'll do anything with that or not yet.Depends on how nasty and in depth the surgery is going to be.

This is definitely going to be one awesome build to watch you work up there Boss. Me's believes that you will be raising the bar on the concept of "epic build". Bring it on Bro.

Thank you Joe!

So far, aside from ALOT of clean up that I'll have to do on the real build, it's going pretty smooth sailing. One has to watch out for a slight lean in the frame on one side during the suspension / frame build up. I really don't know what happened there as everything is mounted up how it's supposed to be. Will have to make some minor adjustments on the main build to prevent that from happening but it's really not all that noticeable to the casual eye.

I omitted the front brakes on this one as a lot of folks have suggested on other sites and it's going to help put the wheels back under the fenders the way they are supposed to be.

Here's a shot of what they look like uncorrected :

and after the correction:

Here we are with the rolling chassis on the test build:

By the way, if anybody is going to build a Freightliner COE I've got over 100 walkaround reference pictures. Just sayin.........

Hi Joe- very cool build! I have fond memories of building this Pabst tractor when I got it for my 10th birthday, just after it came out. Great to see the corrections you're making, they may come in handy for me someday- I still have my build lol (at least that's what's going on in my head .

I can't remember what color I used for the blue, it may have been the Pactra like you used. If you haven't sourced anything yet, maybe Tamiya's X-3 Royal Blue is a close match? Looking forward to your progress!

Nick: LOL! With the much earlier skillset I didn't know they had alot of play.

Pawel: Thanks bud. Man this kit is tricky enough without addind parts from another kit into play.......especially the major ones like a frame. Will be looking forward to your approach when you get to it though.

Timmy: Thanks for the good word. Whenever your ready lemme know.

Steve: Always good to have you in here. You bring a lightened mood to the show not to mention some of those neat emoticons you bring to the party as well.

Dave: Man I'm right there with you on the fond memories of this thing. I built this one as a kid too even though it turned out like hammered dogs*#$! I'm pondering the thoughts of building an independent rig as it gives so much more of an artistic license for personalization than a fleet rig does. We'll see.

Rob: Good to see you in here. $14 IS a good deal for that truck. I believe I saw it on the shelves last time I was there. Looking forward to see what you'll do with it when it appears on your bench potna.

Well...........among other little tidbits that I'll have about this tricky kit (along with some tricky instructions) is the fact that the cab rests will have to be installed at a later part of the build than what the instructions call for. At least that's what I'm finding. They interfere with the exhaust crossover pipe installation between the two exhaust stacks. They are called out in this photo:

For the most part it's going fairly well. This kit has ALOT of seam filling, mold lines and ejector pin marks to contend with. I've marked most everything with a black sharpie so they'll stand out boldly for reference points during the actual build. I'm sooooooo glad I'm taking the time to do the build up because I'm finding some faults with the instruction sheet in terms of where stuff actually goes and I'm hitting the problematic areas with no fear of screwing anything I've painted/ detailed up.

Here's where I'm at right now. I may have to cut the crossover pipe in two in order to install it but that's ok. Again.......I'll know about this before hand with the actual build.

The actual stacks are kind of unique. The heat sheild and the muffler are nearly the same diameter. Unlike the KW/Pete stacks which have an inch or two in the stand off, the FL ones are scantly so--call it 3/8"-1/2" The body of the muffler is typically a dull aluminum color; the shields are more typically polished aluminum than chromed (but custom chromed pipes are available).

This is often also seen in wheels--fleet buyers will seldom spring for chromed wheels, polished metal and milled finish being very common (with painted wheels a close second).

FL are all over, workhorses in the trade. They soldier on and on. Here in DFW it's not uncommon at all to see them refurbished as dump trucks, and clearly on second or third ownership.

Hey There My Friend. Bought time I popped in and checked on your progress. The mock up appears to be moving along nicely. Nice that your picking up on issues and blemishes to address as you move forward. This is fun watching you build this tractor. Certainly new and interesting to me. Seems to me that you could have more than your share of fun "dessing" up the interior when you get to it. Standing by for further updates.

"Not only do I not know what's going on, I wouldn't know what to do about it if I did". George Carlin

Thanks Mac, Greg and Joe. I appreciate all you guys comments and input.

Okeedokee everybody. It's time for the cab updates. This is probably the most dreaded part of this build if building a sleeper cab. The day cab is a breeze in comparison. First off there is a nasty seam to fill between the passenger and sleeper half of it.

This is after assembly and I cleaned this up as best I could. Gonna be a lot of work right here.

Secondly, I've heard just as many horror stories in regards to interior fit into the cab. I shaded the areas in with a black sharpie that needed trimmed up for the interior to slide nicely inside:

The sides needed a lot of work

Then the rear of the interior and cab gave me some fit issues particularly in the area where both of the cab rest blocks are located. So a little sanding was done on the interior tub:

and some on the rest blocks:

Then the front of the cab had its issues with the interior tub and the front lower corners of the cab that had a little "slag" causing a fit problem. So I sanded a little off of the corners of the tub and the steering column since it protruded outside of the interior at the base of the column. (the black dot on the passengers floorboard is just an ejector pin mark that I'll have to take care of.)

Here's the area of the cab that needed shaved in the front lower corners:

So far so good with the overall fit. A little tweaking to do but it's no big deal: